Alums, Staff Give Back to Walltown

Despite a morning drizzle of rain, nearly 30 local alumni, Duke employees, and residents gathered Saturday, Oct. 31, on the outdoor basketball court at Carter Community School to get their group assignments for their Duke Alums Engage community project, working with the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership to clean up Walltown and Ellerbe Creek. Durham was one of 20 cities taking part nationwide in civic engagement projects with community partners during Duke Alums Engage Week, organized by the Duke Alumni Association.

For the Walltown project, Keep Durham Beautiful provided gloves, trash-pickers, and trash bags. Bob Malme, A.M. '92, and others donned orange vests and patrolled the streets picking up litter. The Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association provided plants, mulch, and garden tools for work done at the corner of Clarendon and Knox St.

Duke volunteers cleared brush and vines, broke up the soil, laid landscape fabric, set in plants, and spread mulch, transforming the formerly scraggly corner into a creek-side garden divided by a new path. Native plants, including wood aster, oakleaf hydrangea, bleeding heart and Jacob's ladder, were donated by Niche Gardens. The project was led by Larry Brockman, a member of the watershed association, and Jane Finch, a Durham County Master Gardener.

Nearby, Deirdre Gordon, '96, and Vijay Shah, M.B.A. '85, had sandpapered metal railings that serve as a barrier beside the creek, where it goes under the neighborhood to emerge beyond Club Boulevard. Painting the railings had to be put off because of the wet weather.

The rain had cleared by the time the group was back at the school, eating subway sandwiches and discussing their completed chores with each other and one of the project's leaders, Elizabeth Gill, A.M. '09, a Walltown resident who works at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Bidong Nguyen, a Duke graduate student who owns a house nearby, said that he has seen improvements since moving in a year ago. "Neighborhoods change," he said, "when residents become active in their neighborhoods."